Bonus Track: Matthew MacFadyen reads Sonnet 29

Deutsch: Matthew Macfadyen am 04. Juli 2007 vor dem Royal Court Theatre in London nach einer Vorstellung von The Pain & the Itch English: Matthew Macfadyen at the Royal Court Theatre in London after a performance of The Pain & the Itch, July 04, 2007 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Well, I got my to-do list mostly covered, and more quickly than I expected. I’m working on what today’s reading will be– What? You think I plan these things ahead of time? Again, dear reader, you give me far too much credit. I may appear to be organized, but that’s all done with smoke and mirrors. I had to train myself to place my keys and wallet in the same place every time I enter my home. Otherwise I would never have money or transportation.

But before we get to today’s reading I wanted to bring you a couple from a man whose voice makes me jealous. Plus he’s damn cute. Back on day six of this little challenge I arranged for myself of 30 poetry readings in 30 days, I sneaked off to the restroom at work in order to squeeze in the day’s reading and upload it from my phone. That reading was Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130. Now, this man you are about to hear, Matthew MacFadyen, does something similar to what I was trying to do when I recorded Simic’s Stone on day 15. Matthew, however does it much better. I suppose, he’s got a better budget, camera and director than I do… See what I mean, jealous. But then again, I haven’t seen him do a restroom reading yet.

Post navigation

It’s true: MM does a mighty fine job with Sonnet 29. And I agree that your reading of Simic’s “Stone” attains to that excellence, especially in the measured pace and elegance of your reading. Even the production quality is great: your camera picks up gorgeous visual textures in the water and the riverbank rocks. However, don’t underrate the appeal of your restroom rendering of Sonnet 130, which has a terrific guerrilla-poetry vibe. The only thing missing is the sound of flushing from an adjacent stall. And that setting gives completely new resonance to the line “I grant I never saw a goddess go”!

Great reading. Very natural. Love the way Kenneth Branagh can do this too – make Shakespeare sound really natural on the ear, rather than theatrical. I think you underestimate your powers – although the camera work on your videos is a little shaky sometimes you could say that you are going for a similar, natural effect. After all the camera work on crime shows is a bit hectic sometimes… This is a wonderful sonnet. Thanks

Thank you, S. I tried the stabilization effect when I uploaded day two to Youtube. It was supposed to straighten out the shake. However that video was full of clips of different sorts, and the effect gave a wonderful wavy surreallity to the whole video instead. I frankly loved the surprise of it. 😉 Maybe that crime thing is what my cameraman is going for in some of the others. tee hee.

First – MM is a HOTTIE!!! LOL There is something about reading Shakespeare out loud or any other poet for that matter. It makes you feel connected, speaking the words that were so carefully chosen to create their thoughts. Very cool – thank you for sharing!!!

I loves me some Matthew McF! MI-5 wasn’t as much fun without him to look at 😦

I happen to think that Brits reading The Bard are the best. Shakespeare IS the English language, and, even though it’s changed much since his day, the Brits still speak it, his language is in their blood, so, for the most part, they always do Shakespeare better.